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| Eight decades of Congress-NC love-hate relationship-I | | | Yash Bhasin
The love-hate relationship between the
Congress and the NC has a long history
of about four decades now. It was in 1939 that all the advice of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was then the President of All India States People Conference, a Congress sponsored body of the fighters in the princely states against their autocratic rulers, that Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah converted his faction of J&K Muslim Conference into J&K National Conference. This was done after affecting a split in the Muslim Conference, with pro Muslim League lead by Ghulam Abas retaining the Muslim Conference, forging stronger bounce with Indian Muslim League, lead by Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
By casting his lot with the Congress Sheikh Abdullah's objective was that his personal interest and mission for power could be better served then by joining hands with the Muslim League, since Jinnah was favourably in client towards the leaders in J&K appose to Abdullah.
Although the name of the party was changed, the objective remain the same viz to serve the interest of Kashmiri Muslims , farming over whelming majority in J&K, particularly in Kashmir valley, their struggle against the Hindu-Dogra ruler of the state.
In fact , the Congress-NC ties were more a personal liking of narrow for Shiekh Abdullah and his strong dislike for Dogra ruler of J&K, Maharaja Hari Singh rather than common objective and ideological closeness of NC with Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru rushing to Kashmir in defence and support of Shiekh Abdullah, who was imprisoned by Maharaja Hari Singh and was to be tried on charges of sedition and the state government blocking his country into the state at Kohala near Baramullah, just at a time when India was going to get independence from the British rule and Nehru was going to become the interim Prime Minister of the country, further strengthen the bounds between the Shiekh and the Nehru. This also extenuated Nehru's antipathy for Maharaja Hari Singh .
It was under this background that after country's independence the Congress wound up its unit in J&K, precisely in Jammu region were its leaders and activist was advised to join the NC and the later became an inflated body of All India Congress. Prior to this the Congress had some activists in Jammu, some of whom did take part in the independence struggle and even went to jails.
After becoming prime minister of Indian dominion Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru saw to it that Shiekh Abdullah was release from jail and powering J&K transferred by Maharaja Hari Singh to Abdullah. While sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, who was made the home minister of the country and was second in command in the independent Indian government, looked after the provinces in the country and also the princely states, Nehru kept the affairs of J&K under his dark control. One of the factors responsible for delay in Maharaja Hari Singh taking the decision to exceed his state with India was Nehru's insistence that the power in the state should be transferred to Shiekh Abdullah about whom the Maharaja had deep distrust and also in whose elevation as the virtual ruler of the state Hari Singh Forsa his abdication as the ruler.
Nehru had his way, after the Pak riders committed aggression in J&K and forcefully entered in the state, with the motive to merge J&K with Pakistan. The Pakistani riders, actively helped and joined by regular forces of that country let lose a reign of terror in many parts of J&K, shading blood of thousands of innocents, plundering honour of women folk and causing untold hardships to the people. Under these pressing circumstances Maharaja had no alternative than to accept Nehru's terms to accept state accession with India and to send Indian forces to safe guard states borders and protect its people from Pak riders.
The Congress-NC relationship went on smoothly till 1953, with Pandit Nehru proposing full faith in Shiekh Abdullah, over looking his authoritarian style of functioning, tolerating no descent and imposing curbs on freedom of expression had pressed. Nehru paired no heed to complaints of Shiekh Abdullah throttling democracy in the state and putting iron curtain over the suppression let lose by him against his opponents.
It was only after a prolonged and powerful agitation launched by praja parished in Jammu between 1952 & 53 expose Shiekh Abdullah's real intentions and missions of carving out a sovereign sultanat of Kashmir, with himself as its absolute Sultan that Nehru was prevailed upon by some Congress leaders, notedly Rafi Ahmad Kidwai that the government of India through the Sadare-Riyasat of the state, Dr. Karan Singh dismissed Abdullah government and arrested the Shiekh on 9th August 1953.
It was after that the relations between the Congress and the NC took a new turn of love and hate. However, till 1964 Congress did not open its humid in J&K and NC continue to be having affiliation with the Congress. Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad who had taken over as the prime minister of the state after Abdullah's arrest submitted his resignation at All India Congress Committee session under the Kamraj plan as a bluff, believing that the same would not be accepted, particularly when the J&K NC was a separate organisation and the move for some union ministers and chief ministers in the state to resign their posts and work for the party, was not applicable to J&K. But Nehru accepted his resignation and after a short term of Shamas-u-din as Prime Minister, with the intervention of the Centre G.M. Sadiq became the prime minister of the state. Sadiq who was also NC president merge NC into Congress, while at the same time extended many classes of Indian Constitution to J&K, through the state legislature adopting resolutions in this behalf. He also changed the nomenclature of J&K Prime Minister as Chief Minister and that of Sadre-Riyasat as governor, who was to be the nominee of the president and not elected by the State Legislature as was the case till then.
In 1975, Shiekh Abdullah who was earlier release from the jail and case of sedition against whom was with drawn by the government, was brought back to power in the state under an accord with the then Prime minister of the country Indra Gandhi, after lengthy negotiations between the Indian government represented by G Parthasarthi and Shiekh Abdullah's representative Mahammad Afsal Beigh. The Plebiscite Front formed by Shiekh Abdullah and his supporters, pleading for holding of Plebiscite in the state to ascertain whether the people wanted to stay with India or merge with Pakistan was under the term of agreement converted into NC. However Congress unit in the state continued functioning as a separate organisation. The power in the state was handed over to Shiekh Abdullah on a silver platter, with the outside support of congress MLAs who were in absolute majority in the state assembly.
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